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UK scientists started to use hydrogen in nuclear fusion, and thanks to this combination it was possible to produce 11 MW of energy in just 5 seconds
Scientists at a laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK, have announced a breakthrough in creating a nuclear fusion process for generating renewable energy. The Joint European Torus (JET) laboratory, which has studies from Europe on the subject, conducted tests that fused two forms of hydrogen, generating 59 megajoules of energy in five seconds. This result is equivalent to 11 MW and is more than double what was achieved in similar tests in the 90s.
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The head of operations at the reactor laboratory, Joe Milnes, considers the scientists' experiment to be a procedure that brings everyone one step closer to nuclear fusion energy. Joe points out that the researchers demonstrated that they can create a mini star from hydrogen inside a machine and keep it there for five seconds, obtaining high performance.
Until then, the generated renewable energy is not so expressive, being able to boil about 60 kettles of water. However, its importance lies in the success of its tests, given that the project will serve as the basis for an even larger nuclear fusion reactor from hydrogen for the ITER project in France.
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According to Ian Chapman, chief executive of JET, the scientists' experiments at the laboratory in Oxfordshire set an example for producing renewable energy with the combination of hydrogen, otherwise there would be real concerns about whether ITER could achieve its goals. This was a dangerous thing, and the fact that the scientists succeeded was due to the competence of the people and their confidence in the scientific pursuit.
Nuclear fusion plants using hydrogen could replace fossil fuels
The ITER project in southern France is backed by a consortium of governments, including the United States, Russia, China and members of the European Union, for the first profitable application of nuclear fusion from hydrogen.
The estimate of the countries supporting the study is that it will be used on a large scale from 2050 onwards. If they are successful, hydrogen nuclear fusion plants would replace the main source of pollution: fossil fuels, given that the renewable energy from fusion would not generate greenhouse gases, but small amounts of short-lived radioactive waste.
However, in the scientists' 1997 studies, the laboratory used bases constructed with carbon, which absorbs tritium, a radioactive element. In current tests, new coatings with tungsten and beryllium metals were used.
Understand how scientists produced renewable energy by combining hydrogen
Nuclear fusion assumes that energy can be generated from a process where atomic nuclei are placed against each other and, for this, scientists have developed a solution where a plasma generated from two isotopes of hydrogen is kept inside a magnetic field in the shape of a donut.
Therefore, they are exposed to high temperatures in a way that no substance can resist. This also occurs in the core of the Sun, where great gravitational pressures allow this to happen, at temperatures of approximately 10 million degrees Celsius.
